Hi, I'm Aidan. I've been playing Pokémon for years, with my first game being Emerald (which I, unfortunately, no longer own). I may not be as active as I am on other wikis, but I'll do my best to help Bulbapedia out. If you do want to see me active and doing work, you can find me over on SmashWiki, where we are not forced to use official terminology.
If you have any questions, concerns, or if I'm doing something that straight up pisses you off, contact me on my talk page.
Me and Pokémon
- Like I said, Emerald was my first game. I never beat it though, partially because I'd always reset since I was a kid and couldn't decide on a starter, and partially because my dad threw out the cartridge for...reasons.
- Diamond was the first game that I actually seriously played. Chimchar was my starter. It wouldn't be until around 10 years later that I actually beat the game, and the only reason I didn't before was because kid me missed out on the fact that they needed to go to Spear Pillar, and kept wondering why they couldn't get to the eighth gym.
- I did also have Pearl and Platinum at one point. No idea where those cartridges are, but maybe one day I'll go back and beat Platinum.
- Black is probably my favorite game in the series. I also put a lot of time into that game, and still to this day can't get over how amazing the game looks, sounds, and feels on the DS. Leading up to playing the game, I grew to love the Fire starters, but I picked Snivy because Tepig didn't look too appealing. I never did beat it, because kid me was terrible at spreading the EXP across the team, leading to my team of my overleveled starter, one overleveled Pokémon carrying the Exp. Share, and four severely underleveled Pokémon being wiped across the floor by the Elite Four, but I finally beat it after about a decade, and the postgame material (including the Abyssal Ruins, which I had absolutely no idea about and was incredibly enthralled by) only skyrocketed my opinion of the game—it's, by far, my favorite one.
- I also own White 2, but I didn't put that much time into it. Maybe one day I'll go back and beat it, but I don't think I'll be able to appreciate it as much simply because of my love and nostalgia for Black.
- X was the first Pokémon game I had actually completed, but that's probably because it was super easy to level up Pokémon in that game since that was when they switched up the Exp. Share mechanics. Fennekin was my starter. I liked the game a lot when I played through it, but there are a lot of things that I've come to criticize about it in hindsight.
- In an ironic twist, my dad—the same one who threw out my copy of Emerald—was the one to get me X for Christmas.
- I got one of those $1 preorder cards at Target for Moon, because I was actually kind of excited for it. I picked Litten as my starter. It was a unique experience and I like a lot of the things that they tried in that game, but I don't think too highly of it in general.
- I also got Ultra Sun, but soon after starting it realized that it was basically the same game as Moon, so I didn't continue with it.
- I got Blue on my 3DS Virtual Console, but didn't really like how it played. In fairness, it's hard to go back to square one in a franchise when you're used to all of the QOL changes they've made over the decades, but still.
- I got Violet for Christmas the year it came out, but I haven't spent much time with it. I'm not quite sure why, but it felt like I had to slog to get through even just one area, and I got tired of it very easily. Maybe I'll go back and play it more at some point, but the performance of the game and the current state of the overall franchise isn't really convincing me to do so.
- You'll notice that there was no mention of Gen II or VIII here. That's because I haven't played them in any way. I at least plan to go back and play one of the Gen II games at some point, but I can't say it's likely I'll play a Gen VIII game anytime soon.